[Hiring] Business Engagement Lead @Institute for Human Rights & Business

Role Description

IHRB is seeking an experienced Business Engagement Lead to drive the project’s institutional engagement:

• Building relationships and trust with renewable energy developers/operators to secure and run pilot partnerships.
• Bringing the Hidden Bill taxonomy and operational pathways into the financial institutions that price and insure infrastructure risk.
• Convening the practitioners whose decisions determine whether social conflict risk is proactively managed or an unmitigated cost centre.

IHRB is looking for an experienced human rights and social risk practitioner who understands how renewables companies actually work, including:

• How decisions get made inside them.
• Who holds influence.
• What their internal culture incentivizes.
• What it takes for new practice to be embedded effectively.

Qualifications

• Substantial experience (typically 7+ years) working on human rights and social risk directly with companies or financial institutions.
• A strong understanding of how renewables companies work internally, including decision-making processes, governance, incentives, and organisational culture.
• A track record of building operational partnerships with companies or financial institutions.
• Solid understanding of human rights due diligence, community engagement, benefit-sharing, and operational-level grievance mechanisms.
• A working understanding of how investors, lenders, and insurers assess risk.
• Expertise in rights-based frameworks and emerging regulation.
• Research literacy: able to master the Hidden Bill evidence quickly.
• Demonstrated ability to design and run high-trust convenings.

Requirements

• Stakeholder mapping and engagement design skills.
• Negotiation and partnership-building skills.
• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Facilitation skills for productive conversations.
• Discipline around tracking and reporting engagement.
• High emotional intelligence and political judgement.

Benefits

• Flexible working arrangements (full-time or part-time).
• Compensation of £70,000 per year for five days per week, pro rata for part-time arrangements.
• Project travel and convening costs covered separately.

Company Description

The Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) was founded in 2009. Our vision is to achieve a more just and regenerative global economy where:

• Workers and communities are free and able to use their voices effectively to ensure their rights are respected.
• Businesses demonstrate respect for the rights of workers and communities, and the natural systems they depend on.
• Financial actors use their leverage to positively impact the scale and performance of their partners’ human rights and environmental responsibilities.
• Governments actively implement a smart mix of long-term incentives and disincentives that drive rights-respecting and planet-aligned business.

IHRB’s mission is to make respect for people and planet part of everyday business through human rights-based research, targeted convening, and development of collaborative action.